becki_kanou wrote:Maybe I'm just used to Japanese milk after all these years, but it tastes fine to me.

Same here, although I remember coming here when I was younger and feeling that the milk tasted weird.

While they have a bunch of hyper-pasteurized milk, there are also a few brands that have low-heat pasteurization. So instead of hitting the milk for 12 seconds at 200 (or whatever they cook it at) they do it for 8 minutes at 120. This supposedly results in the milk retaining more of the minerals than the standard way, while still killing the same amount of germs.

I had some milk when I went back to the states a couple of months ago, and I never realized how thin it is compared to Japanese milk. I felt like I was drinking water.

becki_kanou wrote:Maybe I'm just used to Japanese milk after all these years, but it tastes fine to me.

Same here, although I remember coming here when I was younger and feeling that the milk tasted weird.

I had some milk when I went back to the states a couple of months ago, and I never realized how thin it is compared to Japanese milk. I felt like I was drinking water.

Ah... maybe that's it, I never really just drink a glass of milk. I usually just use it in coffee, cooking etc. I do love the availablity of drink yogurt, though. If I recall correctly, it was never all that popular in the States, but here I can get it any コンビニ.

you have that backwards.. 2% of the milk is milkfat, the rest is milk.. funny how people get confused with that.

From what I remember, japanese cows are fed a completely different diet than American cows and that also has a huge difference in the taste of the milk. I was also under the impression that most Japanese milk was somewhere in the range of 8% or 10% milkfat making it much more rich that the American counterparts.

When I was in Japan, the only way I could drink regular milk was if it was in a cereal bowl with cereal. I could only handle strawberry or chocolate milk on it's own. And milk was crazy expensive so, I usually avoided the extra cost and had powedered milk sent over from the US>

So I guess I'm the only one that has ever used "half and half" for a bowl of cereal?

I wouldn't recommend doing that too often. I haven't done it in years, and only then to finish off some stuff that was nearing its expiration date.

I always wondered about Japanese milk since I read "Yotsubato" where there were a couple of stories revolving around milk and the way the story went, it certainly seemed quite delicious. Now I'm even more curious to try some...

I am a lifelong milk hater, both U.S. and Japan, so I haven't spent much of my life browsing the milk section of supermarkets. My impression, however, is that Japan doesn't offer the same variety of different percentages of milkfat and whatnot as does the U.S. I believe that 3.8% is considered pretty typical for milk in Japan.